Women's Mobilization in Francophone Africa: Sources, Struggle, and Social Change

Festival des Cinq Continents 2023: Found in Translation

La Maison Française of NYU is delighted to announce the 5th edition of the Festival des Cinq Continents, organized in partnership with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. We are excited to welcome the public back for an incredible week of programs from April 17th-22nd under the theme "Found in Translation." Join us for a rich tapestry of interwoven events with celebrated Francophone artists in visual arts (Momar Seck), music (Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba, Marilyn Nonken), poetry (Sylvie Kandé, Isabelle Balot), theatre (Mamadou Mahmoud N'Dongo), and a conference on Women's Mobilization in Francophone Africa. Events are free and open to all!

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La Maison Française de NYU a le plaisir d'annoncer la 5ème édition du Festival des Cinq Continents, organisé en partenariat avec l'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Nous sommes ravi.e.s d'accueillir le public pour une semaine de programmes exceptionnels du 17 au 22 avril, sous le thème "Found in Translation." Venez découvrir une tapisserie riche d'événements proposés autour d'artistes francophones issu.e.s de disciplines variées: arts visuels (Momar Seck), musique (Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba, Marilyn Nonken), poésie (Sylvie Kandé, Isabelle Balot), théâtre (Mamadou Mahmoud N'Dongo) et une conférence sur les Mobilisations des Femmes en Afrique Francophone. Les événements sont gratuits et ouverts à tou.t.e.s.

**This event will take place in English**

Open to all in person, advance registration required.

11:00-12:15 pm: Women's Mobilizations in Cameroon and the Réunion, with Myriam Paris and Rose Ndengué. Moderated by Liz Fink (NYU).

1:45-3:00 pm: The Archive des Femmes du Mali Project, with Devon Golaszewski, Oumou Sidibé, and Madina Thiam. Moderated by Julia Woods (NYU).

African women's participation has fueled key forms of political and social mobilization in colonial and postcolonial Africa. These roundtable discussions provide perspectives on the sources we use to study these movements, as well as research questions oriented on gender-based mobilization across Francophone Africa. In the first panel, Rose Ndengué and Myriam Paris will present their research on women’s mobilizations in Cameroon and the Réunion.

In the second panel, Devon Golaszewski, Oumou Sidibé, and Madina Thiam will present the Projet Archives des Femmes du Mali, which preserves thousands of endangered papers and photographs belonging to a generation of Malian women who undertook anti-colonial activism in the 1950s and feminist social reform projects in the following decades. Stocked in private homes, storage rooms, and granaries, much of this material is exceptionally vulnerable to physical damage. The project aims to preserve this material by collecting, archiving and digitizing it.

Event presented jointly by NYU’s Africa House, Institute of French Studies, and La Maison Française of NYU.

About the panelists:

Rose Ndengué

Rose Ndengué is Assistant Professor of History at York University - Glendon. Her research focuses on African decolonization, gender and Black feminisms in a colonial and postcolonial context, and in particular the mobilization of African and Afro-descendant women in Europe and Cameroon.

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Myriam Paris

Myriam Paris is a sociologist and researcher at the CNRS (Centre universitaire de recherche sur l’action publique et le politique, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens). Her first book, Nous qui versons la vie goutte à goutte : féminismes, économie reproductive et pouvoir colonial à la Réunion (Paris, Dalloz, 2020) focuses on anticolonial feminism in La Réunion.

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Devon Golaszewski

Devon Golaszewski Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Program in the History of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and Visiting Assistant Professor of History at UCLA. Her research focuses on the history of global health, indigenous medicine, and gender in 20th century Mali. She is one the founders of the Projet Archives des Femmes du Mali.

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Oumou Sidibé

Oumou Sidibé is Elementary School Teacher at New York French American Charter School (NYFACS) and one the founders of the Projet Archives des Femmes du Mali.

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Madina Thiam

Madina Thiam is Assistant Professor of History at NYU. She is a historian of West Africa and the African Diaspora in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her work explores the circulations of West African people and ideas; social histories of Islam in Mali; race-making in the Sahel; Malian women’s histories; anti-colonial movements; and pan-Africanism.

About the moderators:

Julia Woods

Julia Woods is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint program between the History Department and the Institute of French Studies at New York University.

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Liz Fink

Liz Fink, editor of the IFS’s academic journal French Politics, Culture & Society, is a historian of decolonization, specializing in the history of social movements, democracy, and mobilization in West Africa and France.